Earth Vs Moon

[GreenScar]

When I was on the set of Zombieland a few months ago, screenwriters/producers Paul Wenick and Rhett Reese told me about a new project they were working on called Earth vs. Moon. At the time, the screenwriting duo has just turned in a first draft and were waiting to hear back. The project was in the very early stages of development. Burt now we have an update.

Our friends at FirstShowing had a chance to catch up with Wenick and Reese and get an update on their sci-fi project. Apparently the concept came from Stephen Hawking’s TED speech, where the British theoretical physicist talks about the necessity to colonize other worlds and set up a backup society which could avoid the natural biological and human created dangers of Earth. You can watch that TED speech here. They contemplated making it as a video game, but eventually began pitching it to movie studios, and Universal bit.

What’s it about? Wernick describes the film as a “hardcore, 300-style movie with some comic relief to it, but about the Earth and a colony on the moon essentially in a civil war.” How awesome does that concept sound? The story is set 30 or 400 years in the future, and the scale is so “huge” that “it’s either going to be made at a grand scale for $200 million or not at all.” But it isn’t just a big spectacle action film, it is a story about a fractured family who find themselves on opposite sides of this conflict.

When I first heard comparisons to movies like 300, I became worried. The reason why the screenplay for Zombieland works (at least, for me) is because of the humor and humanity. But it seems like they are clearly aware of their strengths.

To give you a better idea of what they’re going for, the duo say they hope to get Will Smith to star, so much so, that they even named the main character Will.

Does this sound like something you'd like to see? The Sci Fi bar was raised pretty high this year, I hope we get more high quality Sci Fi in the near future.